Happy Valentine's Day!

Today Sizzix is celebrating Valentine's Day with a blog hop featuring the amazing "From the Heart" dies by Eileen Hull!
The Sizzix design team members have been busy creating projects with these dies, so please visit their blogs,  they are all incredibly talented!
For my project, I have used Eileen's Valentine Scoreboard XL Box die, Easel Pro die, and Flowers with Heart Petals die.  Here's my project:

The easel is my first Pro Big Shot die that I have used, and I love it!  I think this easel will be used a lot, especially for small gifts.  I started by cutting out the easel with Sizzix's Sizzles 12 x 12 Mat Board.

I then covered the front and back with Ranger's adhesive Metal Foil Sheets.  Next, I embossed the entire easel, doing this in sections (top, bottom and each side) with Sizzix's Daisy Blast & Paisley Palooza Textured Impression set.

I've used this technique quite a few times, I never get tired of using it and it always comes out different, depending on the products you use.

Paint the entire surface with black paint and then swipe the surface with a paper towel, removing the paint on the raised areas.  After the paint dried, I lightly sanded the raised parts and alcohol inked the bare metal with Espresso Alcohol ink.  After the easel was dry I glued the side pieces to the front.

There's my easel, now the heart shadow box.  I cut out the Valentine Scoreboard XL Box with the white mat board and assembled my box.

I then cut out the heart (not the sides) twice from patterned paper.  Instead of die-cutting out the sides again, I cut out strips the same width, for the inside and the outside of the box.  Cover the inside and the outside rim of the heart, then the back and inside with the heart shape.  Ink the edges.

For the gathered trim, I cut out strips of paper about 1" wide.  Machine gather the strips, wet the paper, blot it lightly, and then carefully gather.  Once this dried, I glued it around the outer edge of the heart.  Add a bow to the top. Now you are ready to decorate the inside!  

For the inside, I die cut flowers using Eileen's Heart Petal Flowers.  I made two, one larger than the other.  I also die-cut the film strip and tickets with Sizzix's Tim Holtz Mini Filmstrip & Mini Ticket Decorative Strip die.  Tim's mini ticket stamp from his collection, "Going Somewhere" fit perfect.

I adhered some light acrylic, stamped with white Stazon and a Dictionary stamp from Stephanie Barnard behind the filmstrip and then curled the one end.

There's my finished heart.  I've started making a heart shadow box every year for Valentine's Day, so eventually I think I'll have a nice collection!  Hope you enjoyed this tutorial and check out Eileen's other dies, I know there's quite a few that are my favorite ones to use!  I should mention that the papers I used were from Basic Grey's True Love collection.

When you visit the Sizzix blog, don't forget to leave a comment for a chance to win a Eileen Hull prize package!  Have fun visiting the Sizzix Design Team blogs for lots of inspiration!

   Eileen Hull

Amy Friend

Anna-Karen Evaldsson

Gretchen Schmidt

Hilary Kanwischer

                 Jan Hobbins  that's me!

Jeanne Streiff

Richele Christensen

Shelly Hickox

Tammy Roberts

Tammy Tutterow

Tiffany Johnson

Sizzix Blog

Happy Valentine's Day,

Jan